MJR Field Day 2010 Report

[Nipple Twister]

.....no, not those Hammers, these Hammers:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...s/100_1461.jpg
Went up to Table Mountain to meet with the crew up there for Field Day. Was a perfect spot with great weather, Roger, Steve and Christin operating their equipment making "contacts", thanks for sharing fellows, had a great afternoon. Rich and Sarah showed up as well and made some really cool contacts themselves but I'll wait for their trail report later.......thx again....

[Geebo]

Come on fellers! Let,s hear who ya contacted?? Any body PHONE HOME??E.T.??Hope ya,ll had a good time.....

[sarah]

Well thanks a bunch to SAR Jeeper (Steve) for letting us use his equipment yesterday! My first long-distance contact was to HAWAII!! Too cool. Also talked to Colorado. Rick got Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico. And another thanks to Roger and Christian for practicing the phonetic alphabet with me

We just had a great time and can't wait for next year. Going to have to start studying for the General exam!

[GP4Play]

Matt and I went up there today to take our test's and ran into Roger,Christian,and Steve.Wish we could a been there when they had thier sets up but still always great to run into friends anywhere,Really nice camp up there.

[Roger]

Matt and I went up there today to take our test's and ran into Roger,Christian,and Steve.Wish we could a been there when they had thier sets up but still always great to run into friends anywhere,Really nice camp up there.

Well........ Did you guys pass the test?? We need to know thses things!

It was a great weekend! Many thanks to Steve for taking the lead on this event. You just can't have a better weekend than hangin' out with Christian & Steve. We decided that Christian didn't need a radio, they could hear is booming voice in Japan!

We shared the campground with 3 other ham groups participating in Field Day.

There was a rather large Vintage trailer club there this weekend also. Wow, they had some beautifully restored trailers form the 40's, 50's, & 60's! I located my cousin there! Her and her husband have a beautifully retored 1952 Air Stream.

It was great to see Rick, Sarah, Dennis (GP4Play), and Matt Matt2000TJ).

[SAR Jeeper]

A great weekend! Thanks for those who showed!

First off....There were 4 people from MJR to test (ok, 3 MJR folks and 1 spouse). EVERYONE passed!!!

The operating started at 11am on Saturday, and continued to 11am on Sunday. We made a little less than 100 contacts. I'll get exact count and statistics later.

To me, the best part was when Sara contacted Hawaii on her first HF contact, and Rick snagging Alaska!!!

Off the top of my head, we made contacts in all 10 U.S. regions. Probably about 15+ different states. We made about half a dozen contacts to CANADA.

A few pics:
Roger:


Sara:


Rick:


Morning:


Custom Furniture in Rogers site:


Not what you want to see as you approach camp!!!


What you DO want to see as you watch the fire near camp!!!




I guess a little more specifics about the ham stuff.
Roger built an Inverted V antenna for 10-80 meters. Antenna tuned up fine on my radio.
Unfortunately, the boat anchor (that is what Hams call Tube Radio's) that Roger brought, a Drake TR4 pulled more power than the generator was able to provide...so it would not transmit more than a watt or two.

I brought my Kenwood TS570s. We operated all eligible bands from 40-6 meters on it. We didn't make any 80 or 160 meter contacts. I broke down my 8 band Cushcraft Vertical antenna I use at home. The nice part, hit a button on the radio, and it tuned up in a second. Gotta love the built in tuners! For some reason, the antenna was tuning up on 80 and 160, though it is not designed to do so. However, when night time came (when 80 and 160 are good), my radio was unhappy with the antenna in those bands. So, rather than risk burning up a radio, we skipped 80 and 160.

We had a few rules...gotta take a drink of your beverage for every time you call, and they don't come back to you. Gonna make next year interesting, especially when we enforce the rules!!!

Thanks for those who showed. It was great seeing some old friends, and meeting new ones!

[GP4Play]

Wish we could have come up Sat. but I was on call and was pushing it just going for testing.Would have loved seeing your rigs,next year for sure.Thanks for your time Steve and to all who set this up.

[SAR Jeeper]

Ok...some contact specifics:
113 contacts to
17 different states
and 2 countries.
We had 5 contacts to Canada and 108 contacts to the U.S.
We had:
2 contacts to Maryland/DC
14 contacts to Washington
1 contact to Oklahoma
42 contacts to California
2 contacts to Alaska
4 contacts to Oregon
13 contacts to Colorado
6 contacts to Arizona
8 contacts to Utah
1 contact to Texas
1 contact to Vermont
2 contacts to New Mexico
3 contacts to Idaho
2 contacts to Hawaii
3 contacts to Kansas
1 contact to Nevada
1 contact to Wyoming

Band Specific:
2m we had 0 contacts (we didn't try)
6m we had 18 contacts
10m we had 27 contacts
15m we had 9 contacts
20m we had 38 contacts
40m we had 21 contacts
80m we had 0 contacts (we didn't try)
160m we had 0 contacts (we didn't try)

[Old Fart]

Two comments from someone with a "few" Field days behind him...

Don't talk to Canadians - it only encourages them

160M is great if you want to discuss your experiences in the War (WWI)

Sounds like you had fun!

KG6TY

[headhunter]

I had a great time this weekend learning more about the "who, what, where, when, how and why" of pursuing Ham radio excellence.

We learned that people in Japan could hear me without a radio, but a radio would still be necessary to hear their replies. :shout:

Working with Sarah on the phonetic alphabet took an extra fun turn when we started to come up with a new phonetic alphabet based on Mexican food.

Having a cool collection of vintage trailers to look at was icing on the cake.

Table Mountain is a great place to camp with its beautiful Jeffrey Pine trees, which served two purposes - wonderful shade and a perfect place to put up temporary antennae. It was very scenic and a great place to participate in this sort of an event.

On a side note, Mike's Pizza in Wrightwood has some tasty pizza! We discovered them on the way out. I forgot to ask them if they delivered to campsites, but that would be pretty cool.

I just checked the ULS and qrz.com databases and I still don't appear, so maybe sometime this week I'll find out what my call sign will be.

Congrats to all who passed their tests on Sunday!

Thanks to Steve and Roger for setting this up!

Christian

[Matt2001TJ]

Good job on field day...my radio's here

Well........ Did you guys pass the test?? We need to know thses things!

It was a great weekend! Many thanks to Steve for taking the lead on this event. You just can't have a better weekend than hangin' out with Christian & Steve. We decided that Christian didn't need a radio, they could hear is booming voice in Japan!

We shared the campground with 3 other ham groups participating in Field Day.

There was a rather large Vintage trailer club there this weekend also. Wow, they had some beautifully restored trailers form the 40's, 50's, & 60's! I located my cousin there! Her and her husband have a beautifully retored 1952 Air Stream.

It was great to see Rick, Sarah, Dennis (GP4Play), and Matt Matt2000TJ).

Yes we passed,...Good job on the pictures and all the great DXing you all. Next year I will have to join you. The VEC said my license should be in the data base by friday so that will be nice being as how my YAESU VX-6R arrived today Hmmm, I wonder who could hook me up with programing software...:wink:

[Materdaddy]

Yes we passed,...Good job on the pictures and all the great DXing you all. Next year I will have to join you. The VEC said my license should be in the data base by friday so that will be nice being as how my YAESU VX-6R arrived today Hmmm, I wonder who could hook me up with programing software...:wink:

http://www.kc8unj.com/vx6.html

Unfortunately for you, the software mod isn't available for the 6, but it is for my 7!

[Old Fart]

I use RT Systems software for my VX-5 and VX-170

http://www.rtsystemsinc.com/yaesu_template.cfm

[SAR Jeeper]

X2 on RT Systems...I use it for my VX-6, VX-170, and my FT8900. When using it with multiple radio's, you can copy and paste freq. from one radio to the other.